"Wear this," Yuri commanded, tossing a heavy garment bag onto the silk duvet.
I unzipped it to find a dress that looked like it had been spun from moonlight and malice. It was a floor-length silver gown, backless and encrusted with microscopic crystals that caught the light like shards of broken diamonds.
"Where are we going?" I asked, watching his reflection in the vanity mirror. He was already dressed in a tuxedo of midnight wool, looking devastatingly handsome and twice as lethal.
"A dinner," he said, adjusting his cufflinks with detached precision. "My associates have heard rumors that I've acquired a new... interest. It's time we put those rumors to rest and establish a narrative."
"I am not a trophy to be displayed for your board members, Yuri."
"No," he said, crossing the room to stand behind me. He produced a heavy diamond necklace, the stones cold and biting as he fastened them around my throat. "Tonight, you are my fiancé. And you will play the part with perfection."
"Fiancé?" I choked out, the necklace feeling like a glittering noose. "I never agreed to that!"
"The world requires a reason for your presence under my roof, Jessy. A debt-ridden girl is a scandal that invites questions. A fiancé is a romantic mystery that invites envy." He met my eyes in the reflection, his hands dropping to my shoulders, his grip firm. "If anyone asks, we have been seeing each other in secret for months. You adore me. You are consumed by me. Do you understand?"
"And if I tell them the truth? That you're holding me hostage?"
Yuri's eyes turned into jagged shards of ice. "Then your mother's 'private villa' becomes a very lonely, very unprotected place. Don't test the limits of my patience tonight. Smile. Stay within my shadow. And let me do the talking."
The dinner was held at a private club that felt more like a subterranean fortress—all dark wood, velvet, and the smell of ancient money. Men in bespoke suits and women dripping in gold watched our entrance with the focused intensity of sharks scenting blood.
Yuri's hand stayed anchored to my waist, his touch a constant, proprietary reminder of my chains. We were eventually intercepted by a man with a jagged scar bisecting his face and eyes that looked like they had died decades ago. Viktor. Even the air around him felt poisoned.
"So, this is the girl who cost you ten million in medical fees and police bribes," Viktor sneered, his gaze traveling over my body with a slow, oily discomfort. "She's a fine piece of work, Volkov. But is she worth the carnage she's destined to bring to your doorstep?"
Yuri pulled me flush against his side, his fingers digging into my hip with possessive force. "She is worth more than your entire organization, Viktor. And if you look at her with those eyes again, I'll ensure you spend the rest of your life in total darkness."
The tension in the room skyrocketed, the ambient noise of clinking glass dying a sudden death. In that moment, the hierarchy of my fear shifted. I realized I wasn't just a prisoner in a mansion; I was the centerpiece of a shadow war I didn't yet understand. I looked at Yuri—the man who kept me locked away—and recognized the terrifying possibility that he might be the only barrier between me and the true monsters.
The drive back to the estate was suffocatingly silent.
"Why did he say I'm trouble?" I asked softly, watching the silhouettes of the trees blur past the armored glass.
Yuri didn't look at me. He stared straight ahead, his jaw set in a hard, uncompromising line. "Because your father didn't just steal a ledger, Jessy. He stole a list of names. High-ranking names in the UNI, in the government, in the underworld. Names that people would burn entire cities to keep buried. They believe you are the map to that graveyard."
"But I don't know anything! I'm just a student!"
"I know," Yuri said, finally turning his head toward me. He reached out, his thumb tracing the jagged line of the scar at my temple, his expression unreadable and strangely intense. "But as long as you belong to me, they have to go through me to get to it. And I have never lost something that I've claimed."